Top Neuroscientist: How To Heal Your Brain & Your Body With Your MIND (Get To The Root Cause of Anxiety)
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The self-diagnosing on TikTok and all of social media is really dangerous with people saying, "Well, I've got that." But it's not something that you can have. You haven't caught a virus. You haven't got a thing. So if we say, "I am ADHD,"

then we're essentially embodying that experience. Exactly. Dr. Caroline Lee, cognitive neuroscientist. Since the 1980s, she's been researching the mind-brain connection. She's going to help you change the way you think and change the way you live. Dr. Caroline Lee. Mind is the most powerful thing. We are 99% mind.

and 1% brain and body. So whatever we do with our mind, we'll wire in a network. Everything that we experience that's unexpected puts us into a level of anxiety. Anxiety is good in that it puts our body into healthy stress. When we really embrace it and face it, we then dive into the depths of our wisdom. What is the root cause of anxiety? And why do you feel like it has amplified so much in the recent years? So there's two ways to look at this. One is...

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Welcome back, everyone at the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. Caroline Leaf back in the house. Thank you so much for being back on. It's been, I think, over a year or two since you've been on, but the last couple of times you were on, people loved it, and we wanted to have you back on for this new book that you have, which is called Help in a Hurry, Simple Tips for Finding Peace When You're Overwhelmed, Anxious, and Inevitable.

or stressed. And I want to speak about this, but there was a stat that I saw that I want to share with you and get your thoughts on. And this stat is from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It said, anxiety disorders are the most common mental health concern in the United States. Over 40 million adults in the U.S.,

close to 19.1% have an anxiety disorder. Meanwhile, approximately 7% of children age 3 to 17 experience issues with anxiety each year. Most people develop symptoms before the age of 21. This is from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. And I'm curious, your book I think has come at the exact right time needed because so many people in the world are dealing with stress, overwhelm, and anxiety, and they don't know

what the root cause of it is. So I'm curious from a neuroscience standpoint, what is the root cause of anxiety and why do you feel like it is amplified so much in the recent years? Excellent question. Lewis, first of all, thank you for having me back on. It's always so great to be with you and we always have such great talks and chats and conversations. So thank you. Yes. And I love your new studio, by the way. Thank you. It's amazing. Yeah, this is just reading those stats makes you feel anxious. Yes.

And so there's two ways to look at this. The one is, what are they actually saying? Because actually 100% of people battle with anxiety. So it's actually bigger than what we see the stats. 100% of people. Everyone battles with anxiety because anxiety is a very, very normal emotion. It's a warning signal telling us that something needs to, you've got to pay attention to something in our life.

And where it becomes a problem is when we don't deal with it, when we don't manage it. And what's often happening in our current, the past 40 years, the focus on dealing with

mental health issues has been very much one of let's identify the biological cause. Let's find the neurobiological cause. Where is it in the brain? Something's causing it in the brain. There's something in you that's wrong, that's causing anxiety. And that's been a huge focus of research. And that's been, it's called neuroreductionism, where everything's focused around the brain. Now that in itself doesn't,

quite ring true and scientifically it's been pretty much disproved but it's the going philosophy and it results in these kinds of stats that we see because what we need to do as humans is

Anxiety is part of being human. It's a normal response to adverse circumstances, obviously of varying degrees and different stages of our life and all that kind of thing, and dealing with change and all, just being a human. And so when we manage it and see it as something that's giving us information,

and recognize when it's becoming disruptive and dealing with that, then it actually isn't such a problem. But when we are told that it's a brain disease and you need a medication and you've got a disorder, you wire in a perception into people that becomes how they see themselves and you feel kind of hopeless. So when you think, oh, well, I've got a brain disease, there's something wrong with me. There's something broken in me.

That makes things worse. Initially, giving it a label or a name or saying you have a disorder makes people feel comfortable because, ah, that's why I feel like this. There's a reason. And that's really nice. But then it's a gift that doesn't have anything inside of it. You open it up and think, now what? Actually, and it backfires. And that's what we see. That's what we see there is that when you suppress and don't deal, it will then turn into something big. And anxiety then shifts from being normal into something that becomes distorted. Yeah.

I've heard a lot of people lately have been self-diagnosing with some type of mental disorder. Yeah. Either self-diagnosing or looking for something wrong within them by going to a therapist and say, tell me what's going wrong with me. And then sometimes they might be labeled as being ADHD or having something going on. Is there any value in self-diagnosis or is that more harmful than valuable? Putting a label on, I am...

uh an anxious person i have adhd i have some mental health disorder is there power in that there's way too much power in that and it's very dangerous and the research shows throughout the psychoneurobiological research which is psychoneurobiological mind brain body research which is the field that i'm in which is a is part of neuroscience shows that the mind is the most powerful thing

We are 99% mind and 1% brain and body. So whatever we do with our mind, we'll wire in a network. So if we look at all the TikTok, social media, self-diagnosis, it's people. On the one hand, it's people trying to make sense out of what's going on in their life because life is so big and complicated and there's just so much that goes with it and it's so fast and it's...

and we didn't talk about it in my parents' generation, and now we talk about it, but now we've swung from not talking to talking about it in a way that's over-talking or putting it into the same model as a medical model. So, for example, if you have diabetes or you have cardiovascular disease or an immune disorder, there's a way of testing, identifying a biological cause, and then giving some kind of treatment that is

is aimed at doing that. When it comes to mental health, when it comes to life, we need to look at it differently. So the self-diagnosing on TikTok is

And all social media is really dangerous. Really? It's leading to people talking, but it's people saying, well, I've got that. But it's not something that you can have. You haven't caught a virus. You haven't got a thing. You're having a reaction to a life, whatever's going on in your life at that moment. So reducing it to a label...

narrows it down, limits you, and kind of locks you into a pattern. That's interesting because words really matter when we label ourselves. So if we say, I am ADHD, then we're essentially embodying that experience versus I'm experiencing ADHD symptoms, I'm experiencing extreme overwhelm, anxiety, toxic thoughts or intrusive thoughts that are harmful. I'm experiencing versus...

This is what I am, right? Exactly. When you take on that persona, your brain simply does what your mind tells it to do. Your brain is a host. Your body is a host. It's a host to what? Your mind. Your mind is where you are. Your intelligence, your ability to love, your ability to have perceptions, to experience life, to appreciate a sunset, to have a conversation, to follow your dreams. That is your mind.

But not only is your mind this psychological thing, it's also running your brain and your body. So it's controlling your heart rate, it's controlling your brain, it's controlling your genes, your neurophysiology, your biochemistry. So it's doing a lot of stuff. When you're dead, your brain just disintegrates, your body disintegrates, but your mind, whatever belief system we have, it's got this eternal component.

So therefore, whatever we say with our mind, how we perceive, how we look at things, that is going to influence what it looks like in the brain because whatever we think about becomes, its electromagnetic forces regenerate, that then changes structures in the brain and the body, and then the brain and the body just follow the bidding of the mind. So if I'm telling myself, "Oh my gosh, I've got those symptoms,"

TikTok and this one says this and I've got that, I've got that, I've got that. You then merge because your mind now tells your brain and your brain just simply merges with what your mind tells it to do. So if you are fit, whatever you think about the most is growing. So if I'm listening to that all day long, ADHD, I've got that symptom, I've got autism, I've got this, I've got this, I've got this.

That merge, you merge with your environment, you wire that in and then you start believing it. Now it's contrary to who you are. It's contrary to the wisdom that's in what we call the non-conscious mind. So it creates conflict. And that in itself creates anxiety, which is why we see anxiety being this distorted version of anxiety. The anxiety no longer is working for us, it's working against us. So it kind of shifts the process. So what would you say then is the root cause of anxiety for most people?

The root cause of anxiety is a signal. It's an emotional signal. And it's telling you that there is something going on in your life that you need to pay attention to. So it's going to have a multiplicity of different sources. So it could be a child at school and they've been bullied. It could be starting a new business. It could be in a relationship. Everything that we experience...

that's unexpected, puts us into a level of anxiety. Anxiety is good in that it puts our body into healthy stress and healthy stress sharpens all of our wits. We tap into the, when we really embrace it and face it, we then dive into the depths of our wisdom.

And that's in the non-conscious mind. And we can talk about the levels of mind so it makes more sense in a moment. So the cause of anxiety in people is facing the unexpected. Life's full of all these unexpected things that happen and you can't predict them. So we have anxiety as a coping mechanism to help us to get into a high alert state with all our neurophysiology then operating for us.

And then we can move forward if we manage it, if we know what we're feeling. But if we're told, oh, that's bad, and we're getting all this constant media information, which we have for the last 40, 50 years, that anxiety is bad, it's not bad. It only becomes bad if you distort it. What does that mean? Like you ruminate on it? You think about it? Ruminate, think that, oh, I'm feeling this in me. There's something wrong.

Instead of saying I'm feeling this in me. What is going on as opposed to what is wrong? So if I think what what is wrong and I know or at the back of my mind What's one of those label? I've got an anxiety disorder I've got something wrong with my brain and I merge with that thinking that's that will create anxiety then I can't think then whatever I'm dealing with is

in life becomes very confusing because I'm not clearly, I'm not thinking clearly. I'm thinking in a loop that is stuck between the conscious mind, which is really limited and the brain just doing its bidding. And I get stuck in this loop instead of going deep and finding the wisdom. And that makes our anxiety increase because we don't have clarity of vision.

So if I think it's a problem, I lose my vision. And then it becomes, and that's really the root cause is we think something's a problem and it could be, but we can find the answer. But if we get stuck in that loop, we get all confused and chaotic and then the anxiety builds and then it starts distorting. So then anxiety flips and then everything in your body, all the stress response which goes with anxiety, which is supposed to make you alert, now makes you confused. So too much of the good stuff happens.

All the chemicals, like we hear cortisol, for example, is the stress chemical. We hear, you know, that says, oh, it's bad. Without cortisol, you can't survive. It's when cortisol is in the wrong amounts. So when I think anxiety is bad for me, when I think this feeling is something wrong with me,

I then flip the coin on that cortisol and all the other, it never operates alone, it operates with all the other chemicals and it throws all that into disruption. And then it throws the energy balance in the brain and so on. And so that then makes us feel terrible and that's what creates the anxiety. That's the root. And then you need to get beyond that to solve the problem because we can solve our problems.

Obviously with help, sometimes without help, but we can do a lot on our own. And I'm not saying we should do everything alone. We should always reach out for help. Does that make sense? Of course, yeah. And when people self-diagnose that they have a mental disorder or mental problem, you're saying that's very dangerous. But what about if we go to a mental health specialist, a therapist, a doctor, and they give a diagnosis that we're ADHD or whatever it might be,

Is that helpful or hurtful? And what should we do next after being diagnosed with a mental health disorder? So that's really a good question. It's an excellent question. It'll make it worse because the thing that what we've seen from the research, and there's quite a few of our scientists that are trying to counter this narrative. And the narrative is that get your label, get your diagnosis, get your medication. And it feels like you're solving a problem because that's what you do if you have diabetes or if you have...

You know, something wrong with you, go sort it out. And I'm all for sorting things out, but you don't need a label to sort out a life issue. You do need a label if it's cardiovascular disease or something because we've got, that's dealing with physical symptoms. But when we deal with stuff that's happening in the mind, that does affect your physiology, which I've mentioned already. It could be an invisible disease, right? Or an invisible symptom.

Well, that's the thing. It feels invisible. That's because we don't understand the mind. But we've got this thing that if I feel it physically, it's more important than what I can't feel physically. But we've got to shift our perspective on what do we feel physically. If you feel anxious, you feel terrible. If you feel depressed, you feel terrible. If you feel guilty or jealous, you don't feel great at all or whatever it may be. If you feel any kind of overwhelm, you don't feel good. So your mind, your experience, that's...

stronger than that hits you first before the actual physical sensation inside your brain and your body but we've got so consumed with the physical that we want to label it and lock it in so getting a diagnosis from a professional

is, and some people may not want to hear this, but it will make it worse because you've now got a professional sample. I mean, the professional set it. So therefore, so we rather... It's making it more real. It's making it more embodied inside of you. Exactly. But aren't there a lot of people that, you know, say, oh, I've, you know, I got diagnosed and now I feel better knowing what it is because I was just going crazy, not sure what was happening to me or why I was feeling stressed or overwhelmed or anxious.

Now this medical professional has labeled what it is and diagnosed me as having this mental condition. And I feel better now knowing. But do you think, are you just saying maybe temporarily it could help people feel better? Yeah, it's temporary and that's what the research shows. But then you're living with this, I am this condition forever until you reverse it or change it or see it differently. Exactly. Well, a lot of the mental health professionals are trained in the fact that the brain works

can change, yes, but once you've got that this is a mental illness that you have for the rest of your life. So very often you are told that you have this disease and just the word disease and the word diagnose

implies that there is a proven underlying biological or neurobiological cause. So when we use, it's the language that's being used. So when we say you've got cardiovascular disease, we can actually track it back to the heart. We can do the testing. When it comes to, I feel anxious,

Lewis, you can feel anxious about something and I can feel anxious about something. Does it mean we both have a mental disease? No. No, it doesn't mean we have a disease. It means if I listen to your story, there's going to be a lot of stuff. If you listen to mine, there's going to be a lot of stuff and there's going to be different levels. And it's so complicated and so complex. But the word diagnosis in

the meaning of diagnosis means that there is a confirmed scientific neurobiological cause. So when we use the word diagnosis, it feels so science-y. But there isn't. In mental health research, not to this day, is all the billions spent on the genetics, studying the brain, have they found an actual chemical imbalance there?

Neurobiological change even the research on ADHD when they pull those three studies apart is research is coming up recently there's been articles all over the Apple news and Newsweek and everything about hey we've got to stop look talking about ADHD as though it's an it and 30 years ago 40 years ago my professors were saying in 40 years time we're going to have this issue So we've got to be careful of the word diagnosed. What's better

It's better. I'm awful going to a mental health professional. But the language used is so important. So instead of saying, hey, Lewis, you've got an anxiety disease or disorder. There's something wrong with your brain. You're going to have to live with this the rest of your life. That's like a death sentence. I mean, it's awful. Rather say, okay, you are feeling anxious now. Let's talk about, you know, that's a behavioral, that's an emotional signal. There's four main signals that we manifest with daily today.

all day long in different aspects. And the one is our emotions. And then the emotions where the next signal is where do you feel those emotions in your body? The next signal is how is this affecting your behaviors? And the next signal is perspective. How is this shifting your perspective? So it would be better for me to say to you, okay, you're feeling anxious.

Let's talk about now what's going on in your life, logical. Now let's talk about specifically what are your feelings at this moment, in this time, right now, at this moment. Where are you feeling it in your body? How is this affecting your behaviors? What is this doing with your perspectives? Now let's reflect on that.

And when, think of reflection, if you look in a mirror, you get a reflection. If you shine a light through a prism, it will come out as a rainbow. Reflect means I'm now going to start looking for the depth behind this. So I'm not just, I'm going to find what is this attached to? Because if I just say anxious, anxious, sore tummy, lousy life for perspective, and I'm irritable.

Those are my four signals. That is a bunch of descriptions. It's not a disease. We've got to be careful of tautologies. It's telling us, those are descriptions of something. It's information. Exactly. So what is it attached to? Let's find what it's attached to. So now we've got to start digging. What is the thought that it's attached to? And a thought is an experience made up of memories. So there's obviously a thought, there's something going on, something's happened.

And your non-conscious mind, which is your deepest level of your mind, which is your wisdom, it's infinitely huge and present, past and future all mixed at once. It's so fast, it's faster than 400 billion actions per second, operates 24/7. It's where everything that we need is stored and we need to tap into that more. You can talk about it as your spirit level, whatever you want. Scientifically, we talk about it as the non-conscious.

that will, if you start looking at how you're showing up with your signals, you can start tapping into the thought that it's attached to. And when you find the thought, you can then start tracking a thought down. The thoughts look like trees. I mean, I've got some trees over here and we know that trees have roots. We can start looking, this will generate these signals, the emotions, the bodily sensations, the perspectives, the behaviors. We can then take those signals and we can say, okay, let's see what thought this is attached to. We can reflect and start

seeing the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, the how, then we can start digging deep and say, okay, well, let's see what else comes up with this. Mindstorm this thing. Write it down. Get it out. Then you can say, okay, well, this is the data. Now we've got the data. Let's see, what can we do about this? What's realistic?

curious questions, reconceptualize. Then we say, okay, what can we do now today to get you through today? And as you do that process, that's a formula for how, that's based on 40 years of research of the formula of how stuff gets from the outside into us, into our networks. So we reverse engineer that by going from how we show up in reverse engineering back to the thought and finding the root and then reconceptualizing. So you deconstruct that

thought, you deconstruct. So you've now gone from, oh, I'm anxious. And instead of saying, yes, you've got a disease of anxiety, which, well, now what? You've taken that out the equation and you've said, okay, you're anxious. Let's do this work. Let's find out what's going on. Let's see what we can do. Let's empower you to now use this anxiety as information and find out where the source is and how can we reconceptualize, how can we reconstruct. That requires work. It's not a quick fix.

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So interesting because I don't think I ever heard of ADHD until like eight years ago. It was always ADD. Like growing up, it was like this kid has ADD or has ADD symptoms or whatever.

And it feels like there's new terminology or new diagnoses every few years of what someone has or something new that they create, you know, whatever it is. They create, literally. It's great. It's not... And it seems like we weren't born with ADD or ADHD or anxiety disorder. We weren't born this way. No.

But we also can't pinpoint the exact moment that this person now has this diagnosis. Like, can you say the exact moment that the mind, the brain, the body, all of a sudden, now you're ADHD. No. Now you're ADD. Now you have some anxiety disorder, whatever it is. Like, is there a moment we can pinpoint? No, you can't. We can't. And so it's like... No.

And so if we're diagnosing people with something, we should be able to undiagnose through a process of treating and healing the mind, right? Exactly. You said we are 99% mind, 1% brain and body. And it sounds to me like if our thinking and the way we think and how we perceive our thinking and how we feel about our thinking and how we behave about our thinking

influences us into having a mental disorder, then we can also train the mind to influence us to healing our body, healing our brain as well. Exactly. Totally. You've got it. You've got it because your mind is the driving force. If you think of electromagnetics, it

That's what runs this whole studio. It runs the world. Electromagnetics is, we understand that in terms of technology. It's also your mind. We all have a, literally have a field around us. And this is hardcore physics. This is not woo-woo stuff. This is hardcore science. So what can you explain what the mind is versus...

The mind and the brain. So here I've got a brain. It's not a real one. I mean, I should bring a real one in a bottle, shouldn't I? Okay, so here's the little model of the brain. And I think I had this one here before when we did our interview. But essentially, this is a...

three pound organ that is, three and a half pound organ that is about the size of your two fists, not quite as big as this, and it's very complicated and complex, which it should be, but it's still a physical substance, so it's purely a host, because when someone dies, when their heart stops, within 20 seconds your brain flatlines, and your organs shut down, and your cells stop functioning, but we're alive now, and we have got

an ability to make over 800,000 to a million cells every second. Well, you sit looking at me, we are making 800 to a million cells every second and the quality of those cells is

So we, being alive or making cells, I mean that impact alone, if people just process that we are making physical substance by being alive. Now the quality of our interaction, the quality of how we look at life influences the quality of those cells. We have 37 to 100 trillion cells in our brain and our body. Those cells make our organs, which make our systems, which make our body, of which the brain is one. So every moment of every day, we are alive.

kind of redesigning our body. So that mind is doing that. Mind is this big word that we use and it's a word that's thousands of years old that was used by ancient wisdoms and mystics and spiritual teachers and then it kind of evolved into spirit, soul, consciousness and, you know, but it's this...

it's this mysterious thing that's actually not at all mysterious. In neuroscience, it's often called the hard question of science. I always think that's totally wrong. I always say it's the easiest question of science because yes, we can cut up a brain and yes, we can look at the heart and yes, you and I here physically understand

That's easy to see. It's just as easy to see you Lewis and I'm Caroline and we having a conversation and we talking and you have a life and you have a wife and you have I have a husband and four kids and that's mind that the experiences of that so obvious the fact that we can get upset and happy and sad and that's mind and how when we feel

happy and sad that force of how we process it how we react to situations how we someone gets in in your face in a meeting and you want to punch them in the face or you you find yourself people pleasing or you find yourself faced with a crisis and and you're dealing with that's mind how you your personality your intelligence how you love how you that is that mind aspect and it's

A driving force. When we do a QEG, for example, in our research, we are seeing that force going through the brain. So, for example, when we pick up, when we do a QEG, yes, it's brainwaves, but those brainwaves are energy that are coming from the mind. So first the mind is processing life and into like little clouds. If you think of a circle around me, imagine a circle around me and a circle around you. That's our mind field, however big it is. It's sort of in this region and it goes through you.

Every, like our conversation now is first being processed by the mind into like little clouds and like droplets of water form a cloud. Every bit of detail that's coming out is forming into a cloud. That mind processes that first and then it makes a copy of that and puts that into the brain.

as a neural network made of proteins and chemicals. And then that also, the mind and brain together put that into the rest of the body. So memory is stored in clouds throughout your brain and your body. And so you've got a world wide web. You literally have a world wide web between the cloud, the copies of the clouds as networks, and then in our brain, and then networks in our body. And so there's this whole network. So whatever I'm doing with my mind is going to manifest in the host, the brain and the body are the hosts. So when I think something, if I imagine...

The mind is a cloud around me, right? A happy cloud, hopefully. Big area with lots of clouds. Okay, a big area with lots of clouds. This revolving, moving, dynamic thing. And each little cloud within this big area are what? Thoughts, memories, moments? Yes, it's experiences. All of that stuff is details of the experience.

All the memories are the details. So it's an experience made up of details. Is that your personality then? Your personality is your perception of it. But the experience, like this interview, is an experience. Every word are the details of the experience. So we're forming a thought of this interview. And people that are watching are forming a thought. And all our words are the memories.

So think of the thought being an experience and think of the details of the experience being the memories. Thoughts are made of memories. Experiences are made of details. The experience is the thought. And all those thoughts and memories that are within this kind of sphere around us, within us, through us,

influences the host, which is the brain and the body. Yeah. Because the emotions are stored within the body as well. And the thoughts influence the emotion, but the thought also influences the brain, which is creating the feeling of the emotion as well. It's the interpretation, right? It's the interpretation. It's the host. So if our mind is anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, then that emotion

electromagnetic field is influencing the brain and signaling the body to feel something. Exactly. It makes a copy. So whatever you think of it like step one, step two, step three. So step one, the experience comes in and into your mind and it's all this mind electromagnetic field cloud forms. That's the experience. And maybe it's a

Big ugly experience. So it's a rain cloud and that with lightning going through a storm cloud and in or what's a beautiful experience That's a beautiful fluffy pink and white cloud whatever so you've got those two experiences Immediately and it happens for us. This is happening at 400 billion actions per second. So it's and faster if I it's Kristen So a copies made so your mind expresses it and then makes a copy puts it into the brain and the brain responds

neurochemically, electromagnetically, on a quantum level, genetically, and builds. So as energy hits physical, a network is formed. And that network looks like these trees, basically. The tree is what? The trees would be a thought. Okay, so explain a thought again. What is a thought? If you can hold it up so they can see it. Okay, so basically, the thought is the memories. And memories are the details. So

People are building a thought of this interview about whatever. They called it mental health or whatever. And so that's the name of the thought. Everything we say is building onto these trees over here. One thought? Yes, one thought. Because we're saying a lot of stuff. By the end of this conversation, we would have probably spoken about 4,000 details. Wow. So let's say that this tree here is the thought that's forming. The branches are all the memories.

So a thought is an experience. Those are the synonyms. A thought synonym would be an experience. Experience, a memory, a moment, something you're thinking about. The experience is the thought. The memories are the details. So think of an experience as the thing. And then what is the thing involving? It's a conversation. You're going to go and do...

handball, that's a thought and as you, every experience, every little bit of, and that's the thought. But every bit of practice and everything around that experience are the details building into that thought. How many thoughts do we have a day on average? Well, anything from eight, we are aware of anything from 8,000 to 50,000 thoughts in a day. Yes, but we have trillions of thoughts because these thoughts, every single experience that you have from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep,

Every experience is building into a thought. And that goes in your clouds, in your mind as a cloud. And then copies are made into your brain, copy made into your body. It looks like a tree in your brain and like a hedge in every cell of your body. Every cell of your body with a different perception. And it's a whole network. It's a worldwide web. So is the thought that we have, you know, does that...

create a copy in our brain and then does that imprint in every cell? Yes. Wow. You've got to be really careful what you think about. Exactly. This is the part, and that's what the mind is doing. That's why we quote statistics as scientists of like 35 to 90% of physical illnesses cause

come from our thought life. I think it's even more. I'd say it's 100% from my experience. It comes from our thinking. Only 5% are basically genetic that are handed down. So we, and this is not to put blame on anyone because illness, there's also viruses and things that we catch and that kind of thing that go around and that can go in us. Yeah, physical harm that happens or we get hit by a bus or whatever. Stuff happens. Exactly. But we wear our body down. It's not a thing of, I think, a toxic thought. Here's a toxic tree. So that's a toxic one and now I'm sick.

or dead. It's cumulative over time. What we do with it, and this is why this is what we need to manage because these things are contradictory to... So this is a toxic thought. What is a toxic thought versus a positive thought? So our conversation now, we're learning good stuff. Yes.

So this would be a healthy thought. The source of this conversation is you and me talking. And then people listening to us, the root would be what we're saying. And then the interpretation, because we have each of our own unique interpretation, would grow into the branches. So how you process them. So this is now a good conversation. Now let's say that you have a fight with someone. And it's a consistent fight. You maybe have someone in your family that you have a problem with. And there's consistent problems with that conversation.

That's going to be the source, the relationship, and then that manifests as the thought. The experience starts as a root like a tree grows. So it starts the roots like the cloud, and then all the details, the cloud grows into the perception of it. So there's the source, and then it grows into the manifestation. And then this whole thing together...

produces how you show up. So this drives how you function. So the toxic thought is the distorted version. It's the arguing, it's the fighting, it's the whatever the abuse is, whatever the, from big stuff to small stuff. And then that, as the source starts, you then process it, that's the tree trunk, into a network. And then this combination then manifests in those signals that I spoke about.

So this would be negative and this would be healthy. Yeah, okay. And we can just, you can change them. You don't have to, you can't pull this out. Once you've had an experience, it's there forever, but you can change what it looks like. How do you change what a negative thought looks like or a negative experience or memory?

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Okay, so this will produce a lot of anxiety. This is these these are undealt with. So when we talk about the anxiety question in the beginning, this will generate anxiety, depression, all those emotions because what your non-conscious mind, which is the biggest part of you, your wisdom, etc., is finding these and putting them into your conscious mind with signals and saying, hey, pay attention. So when you feel anxiety,

As we said earlier on, it's information saying, hey, pay attention to this. So the first thing is we've got to train ourselves to pay attention to our signals. So people don't like those. They want to, they don't want these things. So they want to get rid of those. So the first thing is you've got to look that anxiety in the face. You've got to look that discomfort. You've got to,

It's like when you sweat or you vomit or whatever, it's getting the stuff out. It's hard, but we've got to develop the ability to be okay with facing the hard stuff. And so we mustn't run away from those signals. We need to face them full on. And that's where we may need the help of a therapist. And I'm all for that, all for the support that we need and to just get perspective and that kind of thing. So the first thing is to see that that's not bad.

If you see anxiety and depression and those things as a disease, you're not going to do, you don't know what to do with it. But if you see that as, oh, okay, this is telling me something. I'm going to face it. I hate this. I'm crying. It's terrible. But I'm going to face this. I feel anxious. What else do I feel? Where do I feel it in my body? How is it affecting my behaviors at this time? How is it disrupting how I function? How is it disrupting how I'm looking at life in this moment? When I stop and take the time to do that, then I pull this up.

and then it becomes weakened. So if I shake it around like it's weakened, if I push it down with a medication or I'm not going to deal with this. Not myself or distractions. Distraction or just think I'm going to just quote positive affirmations. I'm just going to swap it for a positive thought. This is still the brewing, cooking, boiling, pressure cooker that's going to explode in your life in other areas. It's also not just this in your brain. It's throughout your body in every cell.

It's also in those clouds of your mind. So you've got this worldwide web network that's just pulsing and pulsing and it gets bigger and bigger. That wears every cell of your body down. Remember I said we're making 800,000 to a million new cells every second?

So if I'm really stuck in this combination of thoughts, like I'm just focusing on this, I'm generating that kind of energy. That kind of energy is what's making my cells, because energy is what makes a cell replicate itself and build and nuance. So that's not going to be good quality cell. So eventually over time,

time the quality of my cells which means my organs which means my systems which means my physical health is going to be affected then i'm more vulnerable to whatever virus is going around to whatever genetic weaknesses come through our families which we all have it in our bloodlines i'm vulnerable to this this so we start manifesting with physical illnesses that's when we don't address the toxic or negative thoughts exactly when we don't manage our minds across the board

You've got to teach kids. In my practice, I teach kids as young. I don't practice anymore, but as young as two years of age, you can teach this. Because children, from about the age of two, they're starting to recognize that I'm sad or I'm happy or whatever.

You know, that one's not being nice and this one... It's sometimes... Earlier as well. They can see it earlier. They can already... But it's at two they start processing. So this is something... This mind management is a life skill. It's the ability to embrace that sadness and to say, it's okay to be sad. It's okay to not be okay. It's okay that I don't feel happy all day long. It's happiness movement pushing it. We've got to be very careful of that because...

95% of our day we don't feel excited and happy. We feel just going through life. And it's okay to not be okay. We've got to re-teach ourselves

In this current age, zeitgeist has been one of as soon as you feel anxiety, you put a disease, suppress it. As soon as you feel this, your child's this, they've got this, they've got ADD, they've got ADD, they've got something. We're trying to make a label of, we're trying to say this is a thing that you can't control. That takes all the power out of you.

Words have power, but they don't have to control you. Thoughts have power, but they don't have to control you. They have so much power, but they do not have to control you. So if you can recognize and learn to read the signals from as young as possible all day long, from the little to the big stuff, you can then get into a lifestyle where you're managing it constantly. This is interesting because a lot of what you're saying, I think people need to hear. And one of the things was it's okay to not be okay. Yeah.

The challenge is when we spiritually bypass and we stuff things and we just say, "I want to be positive even though I haven't addressed these things that are hurting me, I'm going to rise above it." What I'm hearing you say and interpreting is it's okay to not be okay

But you have to address and face these things eventually. Otherwise, they're just going to keep staying there. They're going to weaken your immune system. They're going to weaken your mind. They're going to weaken your body. They're going to have you interpret life in a stressful way as opposed to, I'm not okay right now. Let me feel what I'm feeling. Let me process. Let me take action on addressing it. And finding a way to interpret something new or mend something from the past or heal or

tell myself a different story, but really addressing the hurt or the pain. Do we have to forgive ourselves or forgive others in order to heal a memory that is hurting us or a thought that is hurting us? Or what is that process, would you say? That's such a great question. And it's one of those questions because forgiveness goes up and down and you're like, don't forgive, do forgive. It's got one of those, you know, it's really like a

almost like a bipolar concept, you know, it's up and down. Basically, from a scientific perspective, which I think it's always the easiest way to understand perspective, there's a principle called entanglement. And that's, we can see each other physically. I'm going to make this as simple as I can.

But we break down into systems, organs, cells, and then cells break down into smaller parts. And eventually we get down to just levels of energy. And this is nothing weird. This is Einstein. This is science. So we work in these different layers. Like we've got three different levels of mind. We have these different physical components. And once we get to the...

energy level which is at our core and each of our own unique energy which is this energy field basically this mind thing which is what who you really are that man that uses the physical body and brain as a host when you get down to that level you've that that part of you operates as a wave and as a particle okay so there's a relationship that's set up so when you

have an experience, let's say that you're very self-critical or something, and you find that there's inner critic, and it's generally very hostile. You're criticizing yourself about something which leads to shame or whatever. So there's something you're saying to yourself, or there's a bunch of words that you're saying to yourself,

And if you, that's not just nothing, that's a thought that has grown as a cloud and that has wired as a network and is in every cell of your body. And it's a self-critical, I'm not good enough, I am this, I am that, I'm breaking everything. And you think about that all the time, so it's growing and whatever. So now you've created an entanglement in the network that's this big hurricane mess of

And so it's now, and then it starts becoming this pervasive viral kind of thing. It starts affecting other things. And the unforgiveness locks you in. The entanglement's like locked in, in a negative sense. So what you want to do is unlock. So by saying, hey, you know what? I acknowledge that

This is a technique. This is one of the techniques in Help in a Hurry for self-criticism, and it'll explain this forgiveness thing very nicely. In that moment when you feel that self-criticism, it's okay if I use this example to answer your question. Imagine that you're in a theater, and the curtain opens, and there's a little ant on the stage. It's kind of one of those red ants, those horrible things that

That's you self-criticizing. That's the self-criticism. So you distance yourself and you're watching a dessert in a theater. This is a technique you can use that works really well and it leads to the forgiveness thing. And you're watching this ant saying all these things, which are the things you've been saying about yourself. The ant is speaking on a theater. The ant is speaking. It's like this little play that's inactive. And you're watching this. You're safe in the theater seat. You're not there on the stage. The ant's doing the stuff. But that's your self-critical talk.

And as it's coming out, you start seeing, is this really? And you start questioning, is this really true? Do you agree with these things? You know, like when you watch, I'm enjoying this, I'm not enjoying this. Do I agree? Isn't that a bit harsh? So you start kind of being curious about those situations and it's all those comments. And then you start seeing, okay, well, you know what? That is me, but you know what? I think I can...

I can see the reason why I did that and I can see why I'm saying that about myself and is it really I need to forgive myself I need to start disentangling and as you start watching that little thing you can start forgiving yourself because self-criticism is you've entangled and created and not where you blame yourself and you just can't forgive yourself I shouldn't have done that

I am so bad. I'm this. And I go, was I that bad? Yes, maybe I was, but you know what? That's okay. That's not who I am. That's who I became. And you start having this conversation with the ant and the ant eventually becomes the tiny little black ant and then so small you can hardly see it. But you've had this conversation. You've worked on a process of forgiveness. You started a process of disentanglement. Now you can do that in the moment to stop the criticism. It involves the self-criticism in the moment. It involves a process of

of forgiveness, but then you're going to have to spend at least 63 days working through a formula to rewire. Because if you're constantly self-criticizing and that is a pattern, you can keep doing the ant on the stage,

But until you've actually now, you know, at some point the ant on the stage is just the initial help in a hurry. You now need to go and say, okay, well, this red ant that keeps popping up. And yes, I can shrink it to the little black ant and close the curtains and all that stuff and forgive myself. But it's risen up again. Until you've rewired the network, you're going to keep on doing that again. And forgiveness is a very big part of it. I know that's a long answer. No, it's really helpful because...

Creating the awareness is the first step but in order to truly heal and create a new identity it sounds like we need to rewire the processing exactly and disentangle Years were decades of a wiring that we've been doing and you can't expect one moment of awareness To rewire the whole system in your body your nervous system your brain your mind so you're saying it takes 63 days in order to rewire from

really creating that healing process and allowing yourself to forgive either yourself or someone else or whatever it might be and feeling your body emotionally safe. What are those 63 days look like for rewiring your mind or your brain to heal or forgive? Such a great question. Very quickly, the forgiveness thing.

That same principle operates. I've just spoke about self-forgiveness. Forgiving others too. You don't have to... People always battle with forgiveness in terms of forgiving others. I mean, right now, I'm sure everyone who's listening and watching can think of something that they think, I just cannot forgive. I mean, I can think of something right now

But I know that until you've actually forgiven, you're entangled. So here we've spoken about entangling myself. Because they have that emotional charge that has power over you. Exactly. You're saying, I'm not going to forgive what this person did. Then that thought, that power is entangled in your body. And it's real. Lewis, that's the thing. That whatever that you couldn't forgive is in that person too. So therefore, because of the way physics works,

That particle of that, there's the relationship. There's actual particles. These things are atoms. I mean, these are particles. These are real things. I'm trying to explain the most simple way I can. So it's, yes, you can't maybe see it, but it's as real as this chair. And it's in that person and you're connected. So therefore, you can never, until you forgive, you're not forgiving the action. What they've done

whatever it is that you're thinking of right now in your head or I'm thinking of, that is maybe unforgivable. You're not forgiving that action. You're not condoning that. But what you're doing is disentangling. You're cutting the ties that no longer, that you don't want that energy. You don't want that negative energy in you because that negative energy is that rain cloud that's

-gonna influence... -Gosh, it's so true. It's so... yeah, so that's why we want to... you want to disentangle. And that's what we're doing a lot of. So what does a 63-day process look like then for allowing your body and mind and brain to rewire for more peace and healing?

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So it's a healing journey. And what we just actually, because I run Clinical Trans, as I'm sure you know, and we just finished a big study over a two-year period, and we're just starting to get started.

and what we were looking at is the actual healing journey of the 63 days. So just in advance, why such a specific number? So what we see from the research is that somewhere between

55 and 65 days, somewhere in that region, we see big shifts happening. So there's shifts happening all the way along, but there's like this massive, "Aha, oh, now I can move to the next level," kind of thing that happens around those stages, first thing. Second thing is that, let's say it's something massive like a sexual abuse or whatever. - Big time. - Yeah, you're gonna need multiple cycles. So I've had some patients who were sexually traumatized and they've taken two years. If you take 63 days and do the math, it's about six cycles a year.

And then it's the rest of your life. So you're not ever fixed. We're always in a process of growing. And we're gathering more and more data. And just on that note of data, and I'm going to go into the healing journey, one of the big things, like an overarching kind of principle of forgiveness and healing journeys is the things that have happened to us

that have caused shame or guilt or whatever, we often take that data and we use it as a battering ram against ourselves. Meanwhile, what we must do is take those things that have happened and see it as data

that can help us move forward. Okay, so the healing journey and 63 days is, and the whole concept of moving forward is that it takes time to heal, which we, and I wanted to see how long, what happens at each stage. So we've kind of broken it down almost to the, literally to the day of what you can expect more or less on each stage of the journey. And it's very up and down. Like for example, the first four to seven days

between the first week around about the first seven days of deciding to make any change in your life we've generally very motivated because we realize there's an awareness I want to do this yeah but then it gets hard then it gets hard yeah and then it gets hard and then if you push through there'll be a 14 day now this is various different benchmarks when you get to date the first 21 days is around about 21 to 28 days there's a lot of

facing the issue, a lot of pain, a lot of grieving, a lot of sadness, a lot of anxiety, often increased depression. We often find with our patients in this clinical trial that people felt worse at day 21. But it's a different worse. It's a better worse. Is there such a thing as a better worse? Absolutely. A better worse is... It's a purging almost. It's a purging. It's allowing like an...

almost an ego death, letting go of an old identity, which you've held onto for so long. And even though that painful old identity didn't work for you, it's familiar. Exactly. And you're comfortable. It was a coping mechanism. You're comfortable with the familiar, even if it's painful and it's killing you. Exactly. That's exactly it. And facing also, when you face it head on, we want to push things away. When you look at that, you're going to grieve. You're going to, I've had some patients saying to me things like,

I'm more depressed now, but it's a different depression. I'm more anxious now, but it's different. It's healthy. I know why I'm sad. What I used to do is like, man, how did I allow 20, 25 years of me to go on like this? And it was more like, now that I'm aware, I'm beating myself up for even allowing myself to live like that. So you made that worse as well. So you're kind of like, yeah, you're trying to process and heal, but then you're, what an idiot I was. What was I thinking? Why did I stay in that relationship for this many extra years? Why did I do this thing? Why did I hurt?

all these things it's like you go through a journey of the ups and downs absolutely so you just what you just described what I was saying earlier on is you use that data as a battering ram yeah you're like I was an idiot what was I thinking yeah me and that's because of us being so absorbed into the I'm it you weren't it what happened in that relationship wasn't

who you were, it was what you were going through in that time. So it's not, so what I always say is that whatever, however we're showing up, that's not who we are because at core who we are, we're wired for love. We're amazing, we're brilliant, we're wonderful. We have such power and such beauty in being a human.

It's not who we are, it's who we've become because of. Look for the because of. That's why the label doesn't look for the because of. The because of is where the joy is. The because of is the ant on the stage turning into a beautiful whatever at the end of the day. It's the because of that we've got to find and that takes time. And what I have found from the research is that in my clinical experience and just my own life and just

is that when you recognize that, okay, there's an up, there's a down. If I know that, for example, day 28, I'm going to have day 21, I'm going to think I've got this. If you stop there, at day 28, there's a massive dip that will happen. And if you, then you can get stuck and think, oh, I'm never going to get anywhere. And people get stuck. Day 36 is another day where it's very interesting. I mean, there's many, I'm just picking out a couple. Day 36 is between day 36 and 42 of that 63 days.

there's a massive growth that happens when you face pain and you look it in the face and you start seeing the source and you start deconstructing and reconstructing and recognizing, you know, whatever.

you hit this peak where you feel tremendous grief for the time lost. That's where we can do the batting. All those years I wasted my life. I can't believe I invested this. What was I thinking? All that. And that's where people fall off the bus too. So that's where you want to catch that. And you'll follow it with a real big dip. I've actually got a whole drawing. We can actually show this on the screen. And the whole drawings, it's simple. And there's a massive dip.

in between day 36 and 42 where you, but if you know it's coming, if you know what they are, this is why I did this research, that I can actually show you what to expect. So when it happens, you're not caught by surprise and give up. Okay, I'm going to get through this. This is part of my healing journey. I have more insight. When you have more insight, now that data, what am I going to use that data for? Battering RAM or progression forward? And then you see that massive climb from day 55 to 63 and then there's this

I know now what I need to work on next. And so you continue that cycle. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to

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I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as

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And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

I don't shy away from getting candid about my personal experiences and I want to share all the advice I have learned with you. I'm even joined by some of my friends like Claudia Oshry, Connor Wood, and Amanda Hirsch each Friday for our new Office Hours episodes. You can listen to It's Me Tings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss an episode.

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